EEBA Academy

Zero Energy Ready Homes can save a bundle for their home owners and they don’t have to break the bank for home builders either. This presentation includes lessons learned from builders across the country who are building award-winning production, custom, affordable, and multi-family homes that achieve remarkably high performance levels, in some cases at little extra cost compared to code construction.

In this presentation, we’ll show how affordable home builders like United Way of Long Island, along with production, custom, and multifamily builders across the country, are building healthy, durable, energy-efficient homes that are achieving remarkably high performance and low Home Energy Rating System scores – with a program average of HERS 43 without PV and HERS 6 with PV.

This panel will introduce the EEBA / ProBuilder Ultimate ZEN All Electric Home and discuss its key features, the hurdles encountered, and key points of buyer acceptance. This will lead into a discussion on what is next in high performance building, ways to get there, and an example of one unique builder and energy rater partnership designed to take on the question of "What's next and how do we get there?"

Many builders are attracted to the idea of building zero energy homes. However, there is an unspoken presumption that these homes really only pencil out for custom-home money-is-no-object clients or possibly, as heavily subsidized affordable home demonstration projects. In this presentation, Kevin Brozyna shares how, despite a year marked by skyrocketing materials costs and supply chain and labor shortages, this successful production builder has managed to turn a profit while sticking to their company's high zero energy performance and quality goals. Kevin is joined by Terrence Mosley of DOE and Terri Gilbride of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, who will provide an overview of the DOE Zero Energy Ready Home program and share construction best practices from DOE Zero Energy Ready Home Housing Innovation Award winners in every construction category from production to custom for buyer, custom spec, multifamily, affordable, and attached.